-The Times of India   It was a climb down for the government on Friday as not only a law enacted less than a year ago was repealed but a bill moved on Thursday to exempt some categories from land ceiling limits was referred to a select committee by the treasury benches. The opposition staged a walkout demanding the bill`s withdrawal, saying it was not in interest of the state. Rising to...

Anna Hazare’s Ramlila brinkmanship flamed deep into another night despite the UPA’s many accommodations and in defiance of mounting civil society and intelligentsia opinion that the government had committed to enough on the Lokpal legislation for him to break his fast. Hazare and his core team of Arvind Kejriwal. Prashant Bhushan and Kiran Bedi remained unmoved by public and bipartisan commitment from the highest quarters that key features of their Jan...

As per hallowed newsroom traditions, the bad news first. 1. We have a government and a ruling party that have displayed tactical, strategic, policy and moral incapacities. 2. We have a main Opposition party that, despite witnessing such government and ruling party incapacity, has displayed its own incapacity to do anything intelligent or meaningful. 3. We have a core group of agitationists led by Anna Hazare which has displayed, at best,...

-The Business Standard   There are victors and vanquished only in a war. In a genuinely political engagement everyone must emerge a winner. That is made possible only through compromise, through “give and take”. Through his reasonable statement in Parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has opened the door to an honourable compromise between the government and civil society on the issue of the Lok Pal Bill. Dr Singh only stated the obvious...

The anti-politician feeling generated by Anna Hazare's agitation, combined with Arvind Kejriwal's association with the Youth for Equality, the organisation that spearheaded the anti-reservation agitation in the AIIMS, has triggered a sense of unease among parliamentarians belonging to Dalit and backward communities. Dalit and OBC MPs on Wednesday lamented the "attack on the supremacy of Parliament and the Constitution". From BJP's Hukumdeo Narain Yadav to JD-U president Sharad Yadav and Lok...